We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Monday, February 27. 2012

Went to the opening of The Steins Collect show at the Met Museum this weekend. It's a large exhibit, lots of interesting stuff but mostly stuff that the Steins (Leo, Gertrude, Michael and Sarah) could afford to buy. I did learn that Gertrude's older brother Leo was really the aesthete in the family, while Gertrude was the one who hogged the limelight.

However, I took notice of some things that I have known, but never attended to, before. Mainly, the attitude and behavior of the museum-goers (place was packed this weekend).

Everybody is hushed, like in church or in a library. People whisper, if they speak at all. Nobody laughs. Nobody talks to strangers. As on NYC sidewalks, eye contact is forbidden. It's a reverent but unfriendly atmosphere.

Nobody looks as if they are having fun, all so somber and serious. When I have my earphones on (I enjoy the audio guides) and end up making some wisecrack comment to Mrs. BD, she frowns and says I am talking too loud. A few times I have made comments to people who were looking at what I was, and they look at me as if I had produced a loud fart in church.

Why is this? I know serious aesthetes are studying the pictures - probably with knowledge and sophistication which far exceed my own - and I agree that Cezanne and Picasso were mind-bogglingly good and inventive at their craft, but their pictures are not objects of worship. Not only not objects of worship, but 20th C art was produced to be commercial - to sell to people to hang on their walls to add interest and enjoyment to their parlors. And to convey to others that you had some avant-garde taste in pictures.

The minute people get outside the museum, they get cheerful and chatty again - like normal people - and finally begin talking about what they have looked at.

Mind you, I agree that it is annoying and uncivilized to be loud, goofy, or boisterous in public spaces (other than in sports venues or the aquarium), but it now strikes me that the reverent hush is really sort of strange and unnatural.

Museum Muddle
Everybody is hushed, like in church or in a library. People whisper, if they speak at all. Nobody laughs. Nobody talks to strangers. As on NYC sidewalks, eye contact is forbidden.It's a reverent but unfriendly atmosphere. Nobody looks as if...

1. Everybody's opinion about Art is idiosyncratic.
2. If the moron next to you starts opining out loud about What It Means, you'll lose the chance to decide for yourself, since your nascent thoughts will have been corrupted by his or her half-formed drivel. So, No Talking!
3. Everybody's frowning because they're afraid either they're the idiot for not Getting It, or they're surrounded by idiots.

If you want to have some fun while viewing Art, go to the evening shows where the singles come to meet and mingle. Conversation is encouraged there. The Museums sometimes specifically set up shows and times to encourage this behavior. Hang out with the cool kids, not the olds.

Okay, I mean, presumably you're looking at amazing works of art, so it's an event, but it's more than just a trip with visual highlights. There's an emotional and intellectual vibe to the experience for me personally and I think I can safely assume for others as well. YMMV. It's not a sacred place, but it is a place for deeper reflections spurred on at least in part by the context...the atmosphere. And it is as if by being there, in the museum, you're a part of the experience by default. It's merely being respectful of that kind of a moment in the people around you. If art were merely seeing shapes and colors have a party, but there's something very private and visceral in the experience. Give it its due.

What's depressing is when American jazz becomes a museum exhibit, as it has in Kansas City. That's when you know an art must be dead. Not only did they make a jazz museum in Kansas City, but - and this is infuriating- they credited ISLAM for the creation of jazz in America. This is wrong for many reasons. It is like saying Muslims discovered Norway.

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